August 21 News: Vestas To Outline Plan For Widespread Layoffs In Colorado Due To Wind Tax Credit Uncertainty

Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS), the world’s biggest wind-turbine maker, is likely to give details this week of its plan to cut as many as 1,600 jobs mainly in Colorado amid a standoff in Congress over a tax break for the industry. [Businessweek]

Chief Executive Officer Ditlev Engel said in January that U.S. jobs would be scrapped “for sure” unless Congress extends the production tax credit, or PTC, which expires at the end of 2012. He may provide more details Wednesday when the Aarhus, Denmark-based company reports earnings for the first half of 2012. Gamesa Corp. (GAM) Tecnologica SA and other manufacturers in the industry also have announced layoffs.

Some Republicans in Congress such as Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas are blocking President Barack Obama’s effort to extend the program, saying the companies can prosper without the PTC. He favors ending all energy tax credits. As many as 37,000 U.S. jobs could be lost if the credit isn’t renewed, according to the Washington-based American Wind Energy Association.

The departure of the Arctic-bound rig is a sign of Shell’s confidence that the company soon will be able to launch drilling in the area, despite setbacks that have shortened its window for oil exploration. [Fuel Fix]

Oil prices rose Tuesday ahead of the release of Federal Reserve minutes from last month’s meeting that will give traders clues as to the intentions of the U.S. central bank’s policymakers. [Washington Post]

Butterfly populations in Massachusetts have shifted north over the past two decades likely in response to climate change, new research shows. [Live Science]

Spanish researchers have discovered a novel way of removing carbon from the atmosphere – urine. [TG Daily]

The Geothermal Energy Association is working with California energy authorities to help restart the flow of state utility power purchase agreements made with geothermal electricity generators, after close to a year’s doldrums. [Renewable Energy World]

The average annual temperature in the Pacific Northwest has increased 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1920, and is projected to increase an additional 3.6 to 7.2 degrees or more by the end of the century, according to the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington. What might that mean for plant and animal communities? [Seattle Times]

The German government’s decision to phase out all of the nation’s nuclear power plants following the 2011 Fukushima disaster has led to an increase in coal-burning within Europe’s largest economy. [Yale Environment 360]

Analogy with climate change begins in this paragraph:Akin’s comments appear an awful lot like step one in the GOP’s favorite two-step tactic to redefine the world around us: first, more extreme figures voice opinions that would never fly from more politically palatable ones.

Though if anyone needs his own “Spreadshirt” shop to push his own project, i could offer you a good deal for a set up including logo/brand vector design… Though i don’t do “icon” design, just typography.

Wind advocates might do well to look for another job — instead of power generation — that wind can do. Wind is intermittent, requiring backup gas capacity, and when wind is available (mostly at night) power is cheap. One might reasonably conclude from these two facts that the prospects for wind electricity sales are dim and will remain so, no matter what the political situation might be. Screaming louder for government subsidies is not a long-term solution for the wind business, which seems to be locked into a fantasy from the ’70s about “renewables” replacing fossil fuels.

The US has 50 GW of installed wind capacity. But the capacity factor is small, so wind capacity is largely wasted. It is a failure of imagination, not of technology or political policy, that has put the wind business where it finds itself today.

My Honda maintenance guy told me today that the reason that gasoline “goes bad” in a car’s tank is because the ethanol content degrades. He said that in the years before what he called “Bush’s” 10% ethanol requirement, gasoline could sit in a car tank far longer than the current one to two month limit.

It would be so ironic if getting off corn ethanol would also help drivers get more thrifty with use of gasoline, eking out one tankful for months. I’d like the chance to try.